Director of International Business Development, Bob Spence, and Community Manager, Louise Cooke talk to Linsey Brown, Projects & Communications Manager about Poland and C4DI International 2022.
Why would Central Europe be interested in the UK Tech sector?
UK Tech VC investment is 3rd in the world, hitting a record high of $15bn in 2020. Our startup and scaleup ecosystem is valued at $585bn - more than double the next most valuable ecosystem, Germany, at $291bn. The UK market is very attractive to our European neighbours and C4DI International is open for business and cooperation.
So why has C4DI linked into the Polish Tech sector?
The project started with the recognition non-UK European Tech may struggle or fail to find traction in the UK. This is because international business development mostly starts in London.
‘This has to be one of the toughest starting points in Europe’.
You are competing with established Tech players, competing with some of the best business development Tech professionals in Europe and attempting business development amongst the most expensive overheads in the UK. The attention economy in London is also amongst the smallest anywhere. It really is difficult to get in front of the right person at the right time. (This is never easy anyway).
The northern economy offers different opportunities and even more valuable accessible opportunities to central European entrepreneurs in the Tech sector.
What separates C4DI from other incubators?
We are recognised as the only Tech incubator with acceleration capability in the North of England that has dedicated resources to support central European technology succeed in the UK.
Kaja Szczygiel was appointed our Warsaw based International Business Development Officer and delivered experience-based guidance that shaped our plans. This was vital in putting an international programme together with C4DI Events Manager, Tina Swann in 2020.
As COVID unfolded C4DI delivered International on-line events in 2020 and 2021. Our on-line hosts included Kasia Lanucha of Cambridge University, an internationally recognised cross-cultural communications expert. We were also lucky to work with Slovakian Ivan Košalko, who is not only President of the prestigious Business Alliance of Slovakia, but a strengths coach recognised across the Czech and Slovak republics.
These C4DI events gave us an accurate understanding for the Tech markets in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. We partnered with the local British embassies who supported us strongly and C4DI recognises what a great job they do in helping UK Tech access foreign markets. (Big thanks to Bartosz Kozinski, Sylwia Piwowar, Marcin Boroń, Michał Sobczyk, Bettina Molnarova, Michal Sventek and Andrej Stefanec over the last 22 months).
Through the events we connected with over 120 start-ups and scale-ups from the Central European market together with many of the players and key principles. This gave us a feel for the commercial potential of a dedicated focus into the region.
What is the C4DI plan?
Based on our experiences we will initially partner with a Polish city to set up an Anglo-Polish venture. This venture will have the capacity of linking the Polish Tech sectors of FoodTech, AgriTech, HealthTech, and FinTech directly into the UK via the two C4DI Barclays Eagle labs. We are immensely accessible to Poland. Hull is only a one-hour drive from the Wizz Air Northern Hub in Doncaster that connects to 7 major Polish cities. (It is worth to note we can also access the Slovakian City of Kosice just as easily and we thank Viktor Mitruk and Miriama Huckova of Kosice IT valley for being involved in our previous Tech event).
With planning:
‘You can leave Hull and be drinking a coffee in downtown Warsaw 4 hours later’.
What will be the Polish benefit case?
Our new venture will function as a ‘Tech wormhole’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole
We will link our Polish partner City directly into:
Our network
The Barclays Eagle lab network
The Northern Powerhouse networks
All of the resources that we have that generate UK scale
In terms of Tech services and products we will act as their UK partner supporting companies by introducing the necessary adjustments (product properties, packaging, marketing communication, organisational culture, substantive preparation for meetings, etc.) to improve success potential in the UK.
‘After extensive testing our Northern approach appears more viable than the trial-and-error and ‘school of hard knocks’ thinking non-UK BDMs have to adopt in the London Tech environment’.
What will C4DI be doing in Poland?
The C4DI Senior Management team are travelling to Poland with Bob to stay in the country for a week. This is to meet the people that previously we have only met online, now holding face-to-face meetings in the cities of Lublin, Katowice, and Warsaw. Meetings have been set up with Invest in Lublin and KTW Legal of Katowice.
Lublin is very similar to our city as it is an up-and-coming city for Tech and has a very dynamic outlook. ‘Invest in Lublin’ have partnered with C4DI delivering events and we thank Philip Poynton of PwC for the original introduction to Investor Relations Manager Krzysztof Buczyński.
Katowice is one of the major commerce and financial hubs of Poland. The legal firm ‘KTW Legal’ is based there and they are an entrepreneurial set of lawyers already involved in Tech. We look forward to at last meeting the team.